Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (New Union)
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик Советский Союз, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik Sovetsky Soyuz; abbreviated С.С.С.Р., S.S.S.R.), commonly known as the Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovietsky Soyuz), abbreviated to USSR (Russian: CCCP, tr. SSSR), informally referred to simply as the Union (Russian: Союз, tr. Soyuz) and Russia (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed between 1922 and 1991, ruled as a single-party state by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with its capital as Moscow. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, practice the Soviet Union was highly centralized. The largest ethnic group, the Russians, had political and economic hegemony over the Union. As a result, Russian characteristics personified the country, and it was informally referred to as "Russia". The Soviet Union has its roots in the Russian Revolution of 1917, which deposed the Tsar, ending over three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule. On 7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg and overthrew the Russian Provisional Government in a event which was thereafter known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. This immediately led to the establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic – the world's first socialist state – and the beginning of a long and bloody civil war, the Russian Civil War. Led by Leon Trotsky, the Red Army entered several territories of the former Russian Empire and eliminated White forces and helped local communists seize power. In 1922, the civil war ended with the victory of the Red partisans, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika had been established to continue a collective leadership policy. However, after a brief power struggle, by the end of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin came to power, during which time Marxism-Leninism was established as state ideology and a centralised planned economy was initiated. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industralization and collectivisation which laid the basis for its later war effort and dominance after World War II. However, Stalin committed mass repression against both Communist Party members and elements of the population through his authoritarian rule. During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war in history and violating an earlier non-aggrssion pact between the countries. The Soviet Union suffered the largest loss of life in the war, but halted the Axis advance at intense battles such as Stalingrad, eventually driving through Eastern Europe and capturing Berlin in 1945. Having played the decisive role in the Allied victory in Europe, the Soviet Union consequently occupied much of Central and Eastern Europe and emerged as one of the world's two superpowers after the war. Together with these new communist satellite states, through which it established economic and military pacts, Warsaw Pact, it became involved in the Cold War, a prolonged ideological and political struggle against the Western world led by the other superpower, the United States. A de-Stalinisation period followed Stalin's death, reducing the harshest aspects of society. The Soviet Union initiated significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including launching the first ever satellite (Sputnik) and world's first human spaceflight, which led into the Space Race. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 marked a period of extreme tension between the two superpowers, considered the closest to a mutual nuclear confrontation so far. In the 1970s, a relexation of relations followed, but tensions resumed when, after a Communist-led revolution in Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Soviet forces entered the country, by request of the new regime, Soviet war in Afghanistan. The occupation drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results. In the late 1980s the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who sought to enact liberal reforms in the Soviet system, introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an extreme succesful attempt to end the period of economic stagnation in the country and democratise the government. However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. By 1991, economic and political turmoil were beginning to boil over, as the Baltic republics chose to secede from the Union. On March 17, a referendum was held, to which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of preserving the Soviet Union as a renewed federation, now as Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's reforms helped eliminate corruption in the USSR, leading to greater moral, and bring an end to the communist monopoly not just in the Soviet Union, but globally. Category:New Union